From CNET via Boing Boing, we find out something which should be shocking to no libertarian: the federal government lied about not keeping images from the body scanners installed in airports.

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

And to think that some people actually trust the government enough to despise Wikileaks and even support the death penalty for people who reveal state secrets. When you are dealing with a known liar, trusting the word of a complete stranger is probably preferable. And the state has the same relationship to truth that a prostitute does to chastity. Both will tell you whatever you want to hear, but only an idiot would take them at face value.

I take strong exception to the implication that the types of lies told by “ladies specializing in male entertainment” are similar to those of the State. When I give a stripper a dollar, er, I mean when I’ve heard about my friends giving a stripper a dollar to pretend she likes them, everyone knows the transaction is really just about the cash.

My point, and I do have one, is this: Comparing a hooker to the State is insulting to hookers everwhere.

Personally I despise Wikileaks because of their dishonesty with Apache footage and the fact they “leak” private documents of non-governmental organizations. There’s no reason to trust a stranger over a known liar, at least with the liar you know what to expect.

As for Manning, he (allegedly) released many military documents which may result in the deaths of informants and allies within Afghanistan and hurts the overall operation. That could easily be considered treason, which is punishable by death.

Look, I’m against both wars and want to see us get out of them as much as any other libertarian, but we shouldn’t ignore the reality that we’re there and cheerlead people that are releasing this information just to score political points. Especially when that information could potentially harm our troops.